This invention relates to energetic compounds and more particularly to energetic inorganic nitrocompounds.
Ammonium dinitramide (ADN) is a prior art high oxidant balance oxidizer. M. J. Kamlet and H. G. Adolph disclose in Propellants and Explosives, 4, 30 (1979) a method of measuring the oxidant balance of energetic compounds. They defined oxidant balance (OB.sub.100) to be the number of equivalents of oxidant per hundred grams of explosive above the amount required to burn all hydrogen to H.sub.2 O or HF and all carbon to CO. For C--H--N--O--F explosives, the applicable equation is, EQU OB.sub.100 =100(2n.sub.o +n.sub.F -n.sub.H -2n.sub.c -2n.sub.coo)
where n.sub.o, n.sub.F, n.sub.H and n.sub.c represent the number of atoms of the respective elements in the molecule, and n.sub.coo is the number of carboxy groups. The OB.sub.100 for ADN is 3.22 and is significantly higher than that of ammonium nitrate (NH.sub.4 NO.sub.3) (OB.sub.100 =2.50). However, ADN suffers a disadvantage because of its relatively low density (1.80 g/cc). Density will have a large effect on the performance of an energetic material since the calculated detonation pressure will vary with the square of the density. (See M. J. Kamlet and S. J. Jacobs, J. Chem. Phys. 48, 23 (1968).) Thus, it would be advantageous to have available a high oxidant balance oxidizer(s) that has OB.sub.100 greater than that of ADN but also has a significantly higher density.